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From: miller@uiucdcsb.Uiuc.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Information Generation, Part 2
Message-ID: <32500043@uiucdcsb>
Date: Thu, 25-Jul-85 13:09:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcsb.32500043
Posted: Thu Jul 25 13:09:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jul-85 13:53:15 EDT
Lines: 49
Nf-ID: #N:uiucdcsb:32500043:000:2603
Nf-From: uiucdcsb.Uiuc.ARPA!miller    Jul 25 12:09:00 1985


I wrote:
>> You will
>> never be able to generate randomly a meaningful code in the lifetime of the
>> universe, even one as short as "the theory of evolution".

To which Andy Hogan replied:
> There is an assumption of rate and/or of the liftime of the universe implicit
> in this statement.  Ray is assigning HIS desired outcome a high probability
> (possibly certainty) and making assumptions to prove it.  Given a fast enough
> random letter generator (none exists here/now) you will find the probability 
> of a meaningful string coming out will indeed become high.  In the absence of
> absolute knowledge of the rate at which a primordial soup might produce 
> life, we can make no conclusions about the probability of life arising on
> Earth.  We can note that life is here, and investigate the possible rate of
> life arising.

Well, this is easily checked.  Given 27 characters (including blank) the number
of combinations of length 23 is 834,385,168,331,080,533,771,857,328,695,283.
Assuming 1 trillion generations/second (extraordinarily generous!!!) for
22 billion years (anyone here think its older than that?) then, well, the rest
is left as an exercise to the reader...  So, Andy, why don't you do some back
of the envelope calculations and give us a rate/age which will return
probabilities that "will indeed become high"?

> The SETI project is looking for regular
> electromagnetic phenomena which might be intelligently produced signals.
> ...  The key is that they will search for manipulation of 
> the electromagnetic spectrum, not just regular radio waves.

Now we see double standards.  Define "intelligently produced signals" or "mani-
pulation" objectively.  Why is it we can see evidence of intelligent design one
place but not another?  Why did I mention double standards?  Replace the words
"design", "designed", and "designer" below with "manipulate", "manipulated" and
"manipulator".  Since the following quote was posted to the net by an evolu-
tionist, it is only fair to remind them of it now.

> First you must provide an objective definition of design,
> not just the gut feeling, "this looks sophisticated therefore 
> it must be designed". Secondly you must show how this proposed
> definition of design *intrinsically* *implies* a designer.
> And pleas remember, avoid circularity and begging the question,
> simply saying "this fits my definition of design and the dictionary
> defines design in such a way as to imply a designer" is *not*
> sufficient since you are not using the dictionary definition.
> 				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

A. Ray Miller
Univ Illinois